"Other
terms commonly associated with the jook house or juke joint include 'roadhouse,'
'honky-tonk,' 'hole in the wall' and 'chock house'- which refers to a
very potent form of home brew. Barrelhouse, defined as a 'cheap drinking
house,' refers to serving liquor out of barrels and selling it by the
cup and to a type of makeshift bar with a plank set across two barrels"
(Juke Joints and Jubilee5).

Linguistic
scholars have made attempts to trace the derivation of the term "jook"
or "juke." Interestingly enough, there may be some evidence that this
etymology parallels the outlaw reputation jook joints acquired in "good
society." Lorenzo Turner identifies the roots of the term in the Gullah
word "juk," which means infamous and disorderly. He traces the Gullah
from its West African roots, in a Wolof word "jug," meaning to lead a
disorderly life, and a Banbara word "jugu" meaning a wicked, violent,
or naughty person (195). Scholars have also suggested several European
lineages for the term "jook" or "juke," though this theory is generally
less accepted than the theory of West African derivation: "a quick survey
of European terms yields the French word "jouer" meaning to play, and
several Scottish terms: "jouk" meaning either to hide, evade and play
truant, or a place of retreat or shelter and "jookerie" which means to
trick or swindle" (Juke Joints and Jubilee5-6).

Will
McGuire's "Note
on Jook," mentions the possibility of a Bahamian or Haitian root for
the word. The Haitian, he argues, would have derived from the Old French,
as later scholars have also suggested. He considers the possibility of
the term being a survival from Old or Middle English as well, and then
identifies the modern Scotch term "jouk," as did the authors of Juke
Joints and Jubilee, published in the 1990s. His publication predates
Lorenzo Turner's book by more than 10 years. Other than a reference to
the article in the Oxford English Dictionary definition of jook, I have
found no reference to McGuire's theory on the etymology of the word. Though
this is not surprising, (in the sense that the Florida Review, where
the article was published, was a student publication), it does leave one
guessing as to where he got his sources on the roots of the term, especially
when major works like Turner's had not yet been published. His Scottish
theory does have a reference to a work from American Speech, but
his theories on creole dialects have no citations.

The Oxford
English Dictionary (2nd edition, 1989), which attributes the etymology
of the term to both the Gullah and Wolof roots, defines the term as a
"roadhouse or brothel; spec. a cheap roadside establishment providing
food and drinks, and music for dancing." It attributes the reference to
prostitution in part to a passage from a 1956 publication called Real
Jazz, by S. Longstreet (xviii. 151); "Juke from juke box came
from juke joint- which was once a whorehouse." Evidentally, jook (or juke)
joints are still conceived of as transgressive or marginal spaces.


Juliet Gorman, May 2001 

You
have two choices in moving on:

Have
you read up on the history of how jooks have been talked
about in public discourse yet?

If
you have, then you might want to figure out how all this translates
into Marion Post Wolcott's photos of Florida jook joints?

Keep
in mind:

Have
you familiarized yourself with Belle
Glade, the area where Marion Post Wolcott took the jook photos?